APPLETON, Wis. — Hello from scenic Appleton, which is the county seat of Outagamie County and a fine, fine place to live. In fact, Money magazine ranked it one of the 100 best places to live in 2007, so the staff at the Supe-O-Meter has just decided to stay here.

Why not? It’s not like there are any flights back to New Jersey with the blizzard. And even if there were, Giants safety Deon Grant makes a pretty good point about the benefits of being far away from home.

“It would be even worse if we were home,” he said after the Giants’ 45-17 loss to the Packers. “Last time I looked up, the Jets lost, too, so people in New York are not going to be happy.”

They will be especially unhappy if you’ve shamelessly hyped the idea of an all-New York Super Bowl for the past nine weeks, as we here at the Supe-O-Meter have done. Quite frankly, after the dismal defensive performances from the Jets and Giants, we’re worried about our safety.

So Appleton seems like a nice place to stay!

The ugly day started in Chicago, where the Jets could have wrapped up a playoff spot with a victory. Instead, they lost to the Bears, 38-34, with a complete defensive no-show and needed help from the Redskins to qualify.

Of course, at least the Jets are in. We had to move the arrow for the Giants to NO PLAYOFFS after the dismal performance in Green Bay. There was nothing positive out of this one. The Giants defense had more holes that those cheeseheads they wear in Lambeau Field.

Tom Coughlin’s team no longer controls its playoff fate — if it ever gets out of Wisconsin, of course. The blizzard conditions leaves that departure time very much in doubt.

As for the Supe-O-Meter? We kind of like it here. The people are nice. The cost of living is low. And the football team looked like it had a much better chance of making noise in the playoffs.